I couldn't agree more Mr UFO.
There are (at least) two different things here that we are discussing and people seem to be confusing. One is outright theft with total contempt for the originators. The other is appropriating and borrowing a sound to create something new. And this is not the first time these two things have been confused when talking about black music, and for good reason.
There is a long, well documented history in the music business of white artists/ execs stealing black music, putting a white face on it and selling it to the mass market. Outright racist and morally repugnant decisions are still made by record labels all over the world on a regular basis, and have been for decades. Today the majors are a little more subtle about it. I don’t know this for sure and have always got on well with her and like some of her records, but the whole Lady Sovereign project, or at least the thinking behind it - the decision to sign a white girl nobody had heard of to a major to put out grime records, when there were plenty of young black people which strong grassroots fan bases doing the same thing (and doing it better), always felt a bit like this to me. But I could be way off the mark on that.
Sometimes racism in the music and media isn’t subtle at all. When I used to edit RWD, potential advertisers and media buyers would regularly complain that the magazine was “too black” for them to advertise with us. They would
specifically say that there were too many black people in it. How are you supposed to respond to that? For me people at marketing agencies trying to attach themselves to urban culture whilst making statements like that are thinking no differently to
the guys at Chevron stealing oil and murdering the people who own the land its on in Darfur. That problem is clearly on another scale, but the idea behind it is the same. It’s spiritually bankrupt to take something that doesn’t belong to you like that.
I don’t think this what Hadouken are doing. They don’t come across like this.
That Boy That Girl is a song about life in Shoreditch. They seem to be proud of the fact they are straight outta Old Street, and grime is certainly a fitting backdrop for such a number.
To say hipsters and Shoreditch twats of all creeds and colours have no association with or right to appropriate grime is as misleading as saying disco and punk have nothing to do with hip hop. Old Street has long been a part of the garage scene, the grime scene and the dubstep scene. Weather or you vomit at the sight of trucker hats and tight jeans, to not acknowledge this is intellectually dishonest.
The Truman Brewery has been home to Essential Distribution, Ammunition and MC Creed’s offices, among other “grimy” enterprises over the years, as well as a bajillion trendy hipster offices/studios of some kind or another. It is the perfect example of the intersection of grime and hipsters that has long existed in East London. The Vybe Bar, 93 Feet East and the many other studio complexes, clubs and bars that populate Shoreditch/Whitechapel and beyond are homes to all sorts of crowds and cultures working side by side. I see no reason why they shouldn’t borrow a cup of sugar from one another from time to time. This is, after all, how good neighbors become good friends.
The UK, London in particular, is an incredibly diverse and integrated place for the most part. I think this is something all types of British musicians and artists should be allowed to celebrate. Borrowing and understanding the music from each other’s backgrounds and culture is vital to the survival and development of exciting new British music and culture.
Hadouken are doing something innovative that as far as I can tell (and I should point out I have no idea who they are or what their motives are, all my assumptions have been made purely by listening to their music) is not a shallow cynical attempt by whitey to steal black music. Because there is always a huge suspicion of anyone who isn’t black doing something with what is perceived as black music, and because theft is sometimes passed off as appropriation, it’s not always possible to appropriate sounds and cultures in an honest way and I think this is damaging.
Yes, the music and media industries are still unacceptably racist. But this has also created an atmosphere of guilt, where bands and acts won’t try to appropriate things they should be able to, because they don’t want to come off like Elvis.
I remember seeing the BBC do this when they launched 1Xtra and made the decision to call it a “black” music station rather than an “urban” music station, which is what it actually is. When they launched in 2002, we did a front cover advertorial on it in
RWD. White, blonde haired, blue-eyed poster child for the Arian nation Femme Fatale was chosen for the front cover. After the shoot was done, the tagline that had to go on the cover, that the BBC insisted on, was along the lines of “The UK’s First National Black Music Station.” Given Femme was the cover star, and given that it is a term that I always felt better described the music we covered, I strongly suggested they use the term ‘urban music’. They said no, and as it was RWD, and they were paying for it, that was that.
When the mag came out, people went bat-shit at me. I was asked “What’s this white girl doing saying she makes black music?” a million times. It was a bad look for RWD, Femme (who had done nothing wrong, and had every right to be a UK garage DJ), 1Xtra and the phrase ‘black music’.
Grime owes as much to the likes of Slimzee and Geenius as it does to Dizzee and Wiley. The only unifying theme seems to be East London. Slimzee, Geenius and Wiley were three of the people that complained to me personally about 1Xtra, all arguing the BBC shouldn’t be calling grime black music. UK garage and grime are both perceived as black forms of music by the mainstream press, and indeed by many musicians, this is something I’ve always struggled with. UK garage was pioneered by a very, very diverse group of people appropriating an even more diverse range of sounds. Same with jungle, acid house, house, US garage, disco, even hip hop. The list goes on. If you study all of these scenes, it’s never as clear cut as black and white. This is a function of post-modernism. The western world has gotten way too complex in the last 50 years for contemporary forms of music and culture to be of one colour or another, and I don’t believe there is anything wrong with saying that.
I remember seeing Ms Dynamite being asked whether she thought grime should be branded as black music at the urban music seminar one year. Her response was “We’ve had so much stolen from us.” She got a huge applause, and she was right about the stealing part, but not about UK garage. I don’t believe the many crimes committed against black people inside and outside of the music industry mean non-black people should be looked down upon for appropriating what is seen to be black music. I think it should be encouraged. I also think stealing black music and sanitizing it for a white audience, or making fun of it, should be discouraged, aggressively. But they are two very different things, and if Hadouken’s music be the sound of appropriation for the right reasons, then play on.